


Itch

by callunavulgari



Series: Dark Month Collection [66]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: 31 Days Of Halloween, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Bugs & Insects, Gen, M/M, Psychological Horror, Self-Mutilation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 04:03:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20960156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: The boneturner takes from him two ribs - one for him and one for Jon. With that rib that has been pulled from him, Jon does not grow an Eve. He does not shape a woman from bone and marrow, but he does use it to retrieve one. It's a worthy trade, he thinks.Except, sometimes, he can feel that rib.





	Itch

**Author's Note:**

> Day 8 of October. Prompts for the day were: phantom limb, wounded, memory, closet, stitches, rain, switched.
> 
> This is probably the grossest thing that I have ever written. It features one of the things that _I_ find most unsettling, so y'know. If you don't like bugs being where they shouldn't, you should proooobably stop here. But then again, if you listen to this podcast you've probably already heard worse. Set sometime between 131 and 137, only because 137 is where I am at this very moment in time. I wanted to wait until I was caught up to write something in this fandom, but I really wanted to write about Jon's missing ribs.
> 
> Also, I am aware that I'm mixing up my fear entities, and that the boneturner is an avatar of the Flesh, rather than the Filth, but honestly, I kind of feel that the two go hand in hand.

The boneturner takes from him two ribs - one for him and one for Jon. With that rib that has been pulled from him, Jon does not grow an Eve. He does not shape a woman from bone and marrow, but he does use it to retrieve one. Daisy was worth the trade.

Except, sometimes, he can feel that rib. The one that Jared Hopworth kept for himself. A funny one, he’d called it.

Jon feels that rib, one of the two that are missing from their cage. Sometimes, it hurts, aches like nothing he has ever felt. Other times, it’s like there are ants crawling around inside of him, and he spends hours scratching the skin between chest and belly, like he can dig through flesh and find that missing bone - make the itching _stop_.

The first time someone sees him at it, Jon makes himself stop. His hands tremble against the desk, and the urge to _scratch_ is so strong that Basira arches a careful eyebrow and asks, “We gonna need to strap you down, Jon?”

“No,” he says, but his voice is shaky. The urge to scratch is still there, but he smothers it, pastes on a smile, and says, “Pass me that tape recorder, won’t you, Basira?”

She scowls at him, tsks, and says, “Get it yourself.”

She slams the door behind her.

It keeps up for weeks. A constant, never-ending itch. Then, when it isn’t busy itching, it aches like Jared is reaching in and pulling it out all over again, a pain so deep that it brings tears to his eyes. On the worst nights, Jon finds himself wishing rather strongly for death.

It’s a rainy night in October when Martin walks in on Jon cutting himself open with a scalpel.

“Oh my god,” Martin hisses, his eyes wide. The tray in his hands clatters to the floor, a single teacup shattering between his feet, hot tea steaming as it spatters all over his shoes.

They're silent for a long moment. It's a tense sort of silence. Jon knows that Martin has been avoiding him. He knows because he’s seen Martin _once_ since he woke from the coma. Because Martin wasn't even there when Jon woke up. It's just Jon's luck that Martin would pick now to stop by for a bit of a chat.

“Look,” Jon tells him, somewhat irritably. “If you’re going to just stand there gawking like an idiot, the least you could do is lend me a hand.”

"A hand?" Martin blinks. “You want me to… help you cut yourself open?

Jon scoffs. “_Obviously_. Look, just- come here.”

Martin staggers forward as if pulled by an invisible string, shattered bits of porcelain crunching under his feet. When he reaches Jon, he hesitates, eyes darting every which way. He seems to not know where to look. Jon’s face? The blood slicking his belly? The scalpel itself?

His hands hover awkwardly in the air between them. Jon sighs.

“I can’t do it myself,” Jon admits. He makes to reach for Martin's hand and Martin flinches, jerking his hands up and away, drawing them in on himself, like he's planning on tucking them into his pockets. Jon hisses, quietly. “_Honestly_, Martin-”

“Sorry,” Martin cries, thrusting a hand into Jon’s. “Sorry! You’re just, you’re _bleeding_, and I-”

He goes quiet for a moment, then murmurs. “I shouldn’t be here.”

The room is deathly quiet, the words laid bare between them. Martin’s hand is cold in his, and Jon’s thumb keeps slipping down Martin’s wrist, fingers made slick with his own blood.

“Well,” Jon says into the silence. “You’re here now.”

Martin blinks at him, then glances down towards their joined hands. Jon watches his throat work as he swallows, his eyes skittering towards the door and back again.

“Guess I am,” he murmurs, shoulders slumping. He doesn’t meet Jon’s eyes, adding, “Are you planning on telling me what it is I’m meant to be doing?”

Jon swallows, fingers twitching. He has to close his eyes for a moment to quell the itch. “I need you to hold it open for me.”

“You need me to- _what_?”

“I said-”

“Jesus, Jon, I know what you said,” Martin snaps, his face going red. “I just don’t know _why_ you said it.”

“I need,” Jon breathes. “To stop the itch. I just need to… to check. Just to make sure.”

Martin’s voice pitches alarmingly high. “Make sure of _what_?”

“That it’s actually _gone_,” Jon barks. _That Jared Hopworth didn’t leave anything behind._

Their eyes lock, and Jon can see that Martin doesn’t want to do this. That he would rather be _anywhere_ but here in this room with Jon. His eyes are dark, a little bit wild, and his chest is heaving like a rabbit who's just been spotted by a hound. But the thing is, Jon _knows_ Martin. Knows that even though he doesn’t want to be here, that he’ll stay, for Jon’s sake.

“All right,” Martin says softly, the fight going out of him.

Gently, Jon pulls Martin’s hand towards his side, where the scalpel is still jutting out of his torso. The wound has healed around it, and that annoys him, because now he’ll have to _do it again_, but Martin... surprises him, reaching for the scalpel with shaking fingers.

“I’ll do it,” he says, and before Jon can protest, the blade is slicing neatly through his flesh, fresh blood welling up and spilling down his side, over his ribcage, slicking down his belly. Jon has to hook a finger into the edge of the wound to keep it from healing up too quickly, and he grunts in pain when Martin does the same to the other side once he’s finished.

Martin crouches to the floor between Jon’s spread knees, eyes intent on the wound, and bats Jon’s fingers away, his other hand darting up to replace them. He spreads his fingers, pushing the wound open wider.

“Oh god,” Martin says, eyes going wide in horror. He gags, fingers sliding on slippery flesh, and shudders, like he’s going to vomit, but his hands remain where they are, steady, holding the wound open.

“What?” Jon asks, fumbling for the mirror that he’d set on the table, leaving bloody thumbprints on the cool surface.

But he doesn’t need Martin to answer because now he can _see_ it. See _them_, hundreds of maggots crawling in the red empty hole where his ribs used to be. He twitches, says, “Get them out.”

Martin’s eyes go wide, darting back up to his. “What?”

“Get them _out_,” Jon hisses, and darts a hand into the gaping hole before Martin can, clawing and scooping handful after handful out of him. It hurts, in a vague sort of way, but no pain can drown out the intense, visceral horror, the knowledge that these things have been _inside_ of him, _eating_ away for _days_.

“Please,” he thinks he hears himself say, and then Martin’s hand is right there next to his, clawing and scooping, again and again, until there’s a horrifying pile of the things on the floor between them, red and _wriggling_.

“Oh god,” Martin says again, his breathing quick and uneven.

“Get them out, get them out, get them _out_,” Jon chants, feeling himself shake, hearing the ragged, unhinged quality of his voice. But even as the terror grips him, the itch is slowly fading, replaced with the blinding pain of having two hands twisting and clawing at the space between his ribs.

“Okay,” Martin pants, minutes, _hours_ later. “I think they’re all out.”

“Are you sure?” Jon asks, voice thick with pain. The wound wants to close, keeps trying to seal itself around Martin’s wrist. He’d had to pull back and hold it open himself, but his hands are shaking, and he doesn’t know how much longer he can keep it up.

Martin visibly steels himself, and leans in, until his nose is nearly touching torn skin. Jon has never once felt like so much meat.

“Pretty sure, yeah,” and then reaches in again. Jon can feel his questing fingers inside him, nudging up against things they ought not, organs and bones and exposed muscle. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Okay,” Jon sighs, and lets go.

They both stare at the wriggling pile of larva between them. Martin licks his lips. “What are we going to do with them?”

“Squash them,” Jon hisses, and raises his boot to do just that-

Except his boot comes down on nothing. Martin makes a strangled noise at his side, eyes bulging, and looks back up at him.

Jon shivers.

Inside his chest, something begins to itch.


End file.
